Ego smush

People’s ability to lie to themselves is really really amazing.  The classic example is that everyone thinks they’re above average when it comes to driving (I really am, but that’s another post.)   This week has been a pretty good week so far, but goodness…there’s so much I’m not good at, it’s very comforting to think I’m in a foreign country right now, and have sort of a free pass on embarrassing activities for 6 months. 

I do Japanese archery.  It’s kind of a weird hobby.  But one of the reasons I stick with it is the non-BS factor.  You can’t lie to the target.  You can’t wave your hands or talk about “almost” and make your arrow hit.  You either get a hit or you don’t.  Period.   Sometimes the string smacks your arm on the way out, leaving a welt…and you get angry and frustrated but really…there’s only yourself to blame.  Sometimes you shoot and you hear a metallic twang and even if you hit, you know you did something wrong.  But sometimes you need an impartial, objective judge tell you how things are, even if it stings a bit. 

Anyhow – that’s an old story.  Today’s story is the “I got nothin'” story.   There’s a way of apologizing in Japanese, that literally translates to “I have no excuse.”  I like to think of it as “I got nothin’.”  It’s like – I have screwed up so miserably, that I can’t even say anything to make this situation marginally better.  So take that sentiment, imagine me in a Japanese jazz hip hop class, and there you go!  

…too difficult?  Yeah, hard for me to picture too.  Okay, so try this: picture a smallish dance studio with seven trendily sock warmered Japanese twenty-something women.  They’ve all got mid-back length, light brown/orange wavy hair, bangs, some have eyelash extensions, and are very focused on stretching. Think semi-classy and cute. 

“Easy,” thinks the brain.  “These guys can do this, I can do this.” 

Music starts (some familiar American pop which I liked, but can’t remember) and the “warmup” begins. Stretches – okay.  Plie?  Uh, okay.  Wait, why is everyone getting on their toes?  Wait, you’re supposed to bend over, stand on your toes, and extend your knees? What?  Oh crap.  After about ten minutes of painful squatting, toe mashing, arch collapsing pain, I was pretty warmed up.  Unfortunately, I still had twenty minutes to go.   While attempting to lift my leg perpendicularly in front of me, and then hold it steady at that height while rotating it behind me and bending down…I started to wonder if the hip hop class I’d signed up for had been swapped for the advanced pilates version, and I’d missed some announcement.  Seriously.

Oh, and those flowery Japanese gals?  More flexible than Gumby in an oven.  Splits, weird balancing poses, you name it, they were doing it.  The teacher rather quickly noticed I was having some trouble and came by to manually adjust me to an easier version of what everyone else was doing.  Kinda sad.  I’m not even going to go into the dance moves – they were easier (thank goodness) but only because I could cheat.  Kinda impossible for me to actually do them properly.   

Maybe my brain was slow on the processing, and maybe just ’cause it was my first day, but trying to do what shouldn’t be that hard was freaking impossible.  (!) 

Oh yes, and this week I wrote the two kanji for Tokyo backwards.  Oops.   Very sad.

So much to learn! So little time!   I keep thinking I should limit the stuff I try to do, but it’s all so interesting.  I mean, I completely got thrashed by the classes today, but it was fun.  And it’s pretty unlikely that in my short time here I’ll actually get anywhere with them, but some persistent part of my brain insists on soothing the ego and telling me to try.  

I suppose as long as it’s about the journey, and not the destination, I’m in good shape.   Getting all over the map these days.   Maybe that’s why, despite the ego deflation on an absolute scale (not so good at Japanese, pretty miserable at coordinated movement), I’m actually feeling pretty happy and excited about stuff in general.    

Thank goodness for self-delusion.  Dunno where I’d be without it.